Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Organic Garden Blues

You work so hard. You till the land. You plant your tomatoes, green beans, an obscene amount of cabbage because let's face it, you're a sick bastard in love with saurkraut, or fried cabbage for breakfast. You just love cabbage.

And when I say "You" I mean "Me" I've planted over 40 tomato plants and what I imagined to be a ton of green bean plants, and well over 40 cabbages. And what? WHAT? What do I have to show for it at the end of July?

I have one (1) tomato.

I'm holding it up to the screen. Do you see it? One tomato. And one (1) pound of green beans harvested so far.

I must say, I expected more. I cultivated 600 square feet of my yard and have all sorts of plants there and expected to grow a whole winter's worth of canned tomatoes and green beans. But as things are going I just don't see it. I was like "I'm going to grow all the tomatoes I need for a year!

And then some black spots started showing up on my tomato plants...some critter started assaulting my green bean plants, my cabbages, more or less, are laughably small. The cucumbers...just one, wee, golf ball sized cucumber so far.

What do I expect from 600 square feet?

I expect sustenance. I expect a bushel or two of tomatoes ready can by July 15th.

Damn these veggies their lack of punctuality!

The wife tells me I'm impatient.

Maybe that's true.

I have a back up, though. I've got several vine type plants taking over my garden. If nothing else, I expect a ton of melons and squash this fall.

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